While there's moonlight and music, and love and romance, London Irish are entitled to dream as much as the next club before today's opening round in the Allied Dunbar Premiership. But they also know, as much as anyone, that there could be trouble ahead.
Simple logic dictates that this will be another trying campaign for the Sunbury outfit. While they are stronger off the pitch in light of the takeover by Geoff Read's consortium, they are not obviously any stronger on it. The competition is though: the arrival of Newcastle and Richmond in place of West Hartlepool and Orrell.
Accordingly, you won't find Willie Anderson, rugby director at the club, shouting from the Middlesex rooftops. "I'm just keeping my head down," he said yesterday in self-mocking appraisal of their low-key profile, punctuated by a week's pre-season training in France recently which included a handsome win over second division Romans.
"The boys have been working very hard and I think we're realistic about this season. We know it's going to be very tough. We know we're going to have to fight for every game until, possibly, the opportunity arises to recruit new players who are not available yet."
Anderson's immediate target reflects this realism. "Our objective is to retain our first division status. That's the realistic hope and that's the important thing. Whether the objective will change as the season progresses, we'll wait and see. It could be that we'll be battling further up the table."
The signs are that London Irish might have their eyes on players from the southern hemisphere, and New Zealand in particular, but Anderson is remaining tightlipped about even the whereabouts of these potential newcomers. "We're keeping our options open but we're looking to hopefully strengthen the side as the season progresses. That's not to say that the guys in the squad aren't good enough. They showed last year that they are good enough to survive at this level. However, if you have an injury like [David] Humphries, or other key guys in the squad, we don't always have the necessary strength in depth."
Humphries should be back next week, after undergoing the ankle operation which cut short his involvement in the summer's Irish development tour of New Zealand. His absence compounds the longer-term loss of Kieron Dawson as well as another back-row man, Barry Walsh, who has cried off today's opening game away to Richmond. Former Irish students' out-half Sean Burns comes in at that position, while Mark McCall makes his competitive London Irish debut in midfield.
Their progressive London neighbours will provide London Irish with a quick barometer of the increased competitiveness in this year's top flight. London Irish, for all their potential given they are at the heart of an exiled `population' of nine million, have never fulfilled that potential and for the moment are not, financially, in Richmond's league.
Read and co have ambitious plans to rectify that situation. Anderson is clearly encouraged "even though it's a pity the takeover didn't take place two months ago. But we just have to get on with it." While the new shares issue has gone better than expected, thereby delaying the takeover but ultimately perhaps giving Anderson more than the £500,000 additional spending power which Read had projected, Anderson maintains that London Irish has to be judicious in how it spends its money. The newcomers mightn't all be household international names.
"I see today where Northampton are bidding £400,000 for Scott Gibbs. We're way out of that league," he says, laughing. Nor will the eventual brandishing of a chequebook suddenly - abracadabra - bring them into that league. "For people to say we'll bring in players and then end up beating everybody, it's not real living."
As ever with Willie, realism tempers everything. "We don't want to just buy players for the sake of it, or make crazy signings. We have to buy the right players. I'm very aware of the culture of this club, and that we have to develop that culture. For example, Wasps don't have monumentally big names but that didn't stop them winning the league last season. I know it was only a friendly, but they beat Saracens and all their big names last week. It's a question of getting the right guys to add to what's already there."
That Jeremy Davidson is still there constitutes their biggest coup of the close-season, and Anderson maintains that the re-signing of Gabriel Fulcher was also "vitally important." It's also worth noting that Niall Hogan, an inspirational factor in last season's escapology, is there from the start this season while the return to full health and vigour of Malcolm O'Kelly is almost worth an additional player.
After missing almost all of last season, O'Kelly has carried on from his impressive development tour and has been eye-catching in pre-season. Accordingly, he packs down alongside Davidson today with Fulcher on the bench. "With 40-odd games to play, we're going to need all three of them. There's no way any of them will be ever present. There'll be times when they need a rest and you're going to have to try different combinations," says Anderson. "All will be involved in each game, with two on the pitch and one on the bench."
It's that kind of cover and competition for places which their rivals possess and which Anderson wants throughout the squad. "The side is on the upward development scale and has been working very hard. We know that the logic most people have been applying makes us favourites to be relegated."
In every forecast, London Irish has been tipped to finish 12th or, occasionally, 11th, yet mentally that will undoubtedly stimulate the Irish underdog - Anderson included. Last season was no more than a short-term salvage operation, which he maintains is easier in some ways than beginning a campaign from scratch. This will be a long-term version of same. "It's a fantastic challenge. I've learned a helluva lot about myself and I've made mistakes too. I don't know all the answers but it has been a tremendous experience." And will continue to be.
